In most places, debate ultimately yields change. Not in Australia. Here we have fake debate and feasting vested interests. The on-again, off-again debate about negative gearing has been settled for now with Housing Minister Claire O’Neil ruling out any change, a day after Anthony Albanese poured cold water on implementing new tax changes before the
The ferrous complex is doing the seasonal thing. MySteel output is very strong this week. But can it be believed? MySteel has diverged wildly from CISA and NBS in the last few months. CISA and NBS usually track each other closely, so I am looking for a very weak July this week in NBS data.
The Market Ear on equity internals. A zero-sum doughnut “Getting a doughnut” in bonus is what all junior investment bankers fear. Somewhat common in 2002 and 2003 and very common in 2008. Probably very rare in today’s evergreen bull. Separate from bonuses, it was striking to us this Saturday morning when we looked at our
Over the last year in particular, the impact of international students on the nation’s rental market has sparked significant controversy. The debate has prompted a wide range of papers and reports on the issue, with the quality varying dramatically. In the July Reserve Bank bulletin, the denizens of Martin Place shared their perspective on the
Government-funded jobs have artificially fueled Australia’s jobs boom over the past two years. As illustrated below by Alex Joiner from IFM Investors, around 80% of jobs created over the past two years have been in the non-market sector, which is reliant on government funding. The non-market sector generated around 658,000 jobs between Q1 2023 and
Last week, Statistics New Zealand reported that the nation’s unemployment rate rose to 5.2% in Q2 2025, the highest rate since Q4 2016. As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, New Zealand’s underemployment rate also surged, suggesting significant surplus capacity in the labour market. The rise in New Zealand’s labour underutilisation rate comes
In July last year, Stage Three tax cuts delivered the average household $2.200 per annum. These tax cuts have helped support a modest recovery in consumer spending. Perhaps the largest reason why the boost has been so modest, and is falling away fast, is that while the tax cut delivered an incremental gain in income,
Earlier this year, economist Chris Murphy noted that the historical effective average income tax rate in the first two decades of this century was 23%. Even with stage three income tax cuts worth around $23 billion per year, Murphy warned that bracket creep would lift the average tax rate by two percentage points to 25%
Australia currently has the highest share of temporary migrants and international students as a percentage of our population in the advanced world. The latest temporary visa data from the Department of Home Affairs shows that there were a record 2,460,000 temporary migrants in Australia (excluding visitors) in Q2 2025. This figure was up a whopping
Friday night saw most stock markets rise including the NASDAQ which put in another record high despite obvious concerns that asset prices are overextended, but traders are betting on forthcoming cuts from the Federal Reserve amongst others in the battle against the Trump regime’s tariffs. The USD was mixed or lower against the majors although